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Qihu 360, the leading IT company in China, releases an annual report on the development of ransomware in China and predicts 10 times growth of potential victims or 50 million in 2017.

1. Individual and enterprise victims
Wenting released a weibo one week ago, warning the Bitcoin ransomware. Her tone was serious:

This is the second time our lab experienced extortion by Bitcoin ransomware. We paid around 10,000 RMB. Please spread the words to those who have lots of research data, especially those who are about to graduate.

The location of weibo indicates that she is earning her doctoral degree in the Institute of Hydrobiology of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Unfortunately the weibo was not reposted, not even once. Her voice was weak but she was not alone.
Last month, one of the top 10 threads in Peking University BBS was a call for help from a victim of Bitcoin ransomware. The victim said he received an email in his PKU emailbox with a PDF attachment. He doubled click the file out of curiosity, then all of his files were locked. 3 bitcoins were demanded to decrypt the files and he was given a detailed instruction as below:

Obviously, the victim was seeking a free solution but he soon realized that he was left with only two options: to pay or to format. The decryption without private key is almost impossible. Comment from CharAznable is cold but realistic:

That depends on how much you value your data.

In fact the breakout of ransomware is so rampant that a municipal government has to release an official warning on taking precautionary measures against Bitcoin ransomware, as first disclosed on 8btc forum.

Changzhou government released a warning against Bitcoin ransomware in November 2016

The notice on 4th Nov by Changzhou authority proposed 4 measures to prevent loss from bitcoin ransomware like web-surfing conduct, implementation of multi-level network security strategy, terminal protection and data backup and recovery.
It’s unusual for a regulatory authority to issue an official notice aiming for a specific virus, probably the first of its kind in China.

2. 2016 China Bitcoin ransomware report
Cryptolocker is believed to be the first ransomware in the market when it was detected in 2013. The localization of similar virus came 3 years later when the first ransomware with Chinese instructions, Locky, was intercepted by Antiy, a Chinese internet security company.

Ransomware is a denial-of-access attack that prevents computer users from accessing files since it is intractable to decrypt the files without the decryption key. Ransomware attacks are typically carried out using a Trojan that has a payload disguised as a legitimate file. -Wikipedia

On 15th December. 360 Internet Security Center released an annual report of 2016 China Ransomware. Some figures are listed below:

From 1st Jan to 29th Nov, 2016, a total of 113 types of ransomware were intercepted from 167,000 samples and at least 4.97 million PCs have been infected nationwide.

Cerber, Locky, XTBL are the top 3 ransomeware tree.

Web page Trojans, email attachment and server breach are the most common attack vectors.

Among the domestic ransomware victims, 18.9% were enterprise users and 81.1% were individuals.

IT / Internet industry is the most vulnerable sector, accounting for 25.7%; followed by the manufacturing sector accounted for 18.8%, government or public institutions accounted for 14.4%.

42.6% of the victims do not know how they are infected with the virus, 21.8% were infected by browsing unfamiliar webpage, 11.9% were infected by downloading software, 8.9% were infected by clicking on the email attachment, 5.0% caught virus through the flashdisk exchange and 3.5% is remotely controlled via port 3389.

Among those who did not want to pay ransom, 39.9% of the victims did not believe the money will actually work, 24.7% did not want to surrender to hackers, 10.7% chose to believe that there would be alternative tools to recover the encrypted files.

360 is the leading IT company in China, claiming to be the 1# internet security company in China with 600 million users, among which 1 million are enterprise accounts. The report soon became the source of many similar reports in China’s mainstream media.

3. Bitcoin payment is difficult for common users
The third chapter in the report is about bitcoin payment. A sample survey indicates that 11.9% victims choose to pay the ransom to recover files, among which 58.4% are paid via taobao, 33.3% by following ransomware instructions and the rest by resorting to friends.
However, not every payment attempt is successful. For those who seek payment via taboo, 92.9% of the victims eventually paid off successfully and recovered their files. Only 50% managed to pay via ransomware prompt instructions. The most unreliable means is through friends with zero success. In the end, 70.8% victims finally delivered the payment. That means bitcoin payment via self-education is not that easy.
As Bitcoin is a censored word on taobao, I searched “ransom “instead and found an individual shop that offers to decrypt files at the price of 3, 600 RMB. 77 user comments are mostly praising the shop-owner’s timely service even in mid-night.

Taobao shop that offers decryption service

The survey also reveals that the importance of data infected is the most important factor in choosing to pay or to format. The other three factors are monthly income, job position and related industry.

CEO, chairman, president and other core business leaders are most willing to pay a ransom, accounting for 25.0%. Because their computers often host core data that does not necessarily have backup files. On the other hand, none of the senior or secondary level of executives is willing to pay a ransom, mainly due to their files are usually backed up in their subordinates.
The financial sector victims are most willing to pay a ransom, accounting for 33.3%, followed by 20.0% from the energy sector, 14.3% for the foreign trade sector, 9.6% for the IT / Internet, 7.9% for the manufacturing sector and 4.8% for the school. Financial employees often host important data related to investment, risk analysis etc.

4. Alternative solution
At the end of the report, 360 offers to pay up to 200 bitcoin for enterprise users if they are infected.
To enter into the agreement, users must turn on the anti-ransom service as described below:

360 anti-ransomware service

As per service agreement, if users PC got infected under the protection of 360 service, 360 promises to pay up to 3 bitcoins for individual and 200 bitcoins for enterprise accounts.
Dr.Pei Zhiyong, the author of the annual report, points out that virus makers have to compete with technology advancements, finding loopholes to facilitate extensive propagation in the past. The more victims, the more profits they could make. But things have changed now with the combination of cryptography, Tor network and Bitcoin payment. These technologies are matures and easy to replicate. Bitcoin is the final link in the business model. Traditional virus must combat with anti-virus software to survive in the victim’s operation system. Now with one-time encryption, the victims have to delete the files or pay at least one Bitcoin, or 800 USD equivalent at today’s spot price. Such amount could only be achieved with thousands of infected terminals in the past.

5. 50 million PC targeted in 2017
In the first half of 2016, around 580,000 PCs were attacked and the number grew 8 times in the second half.

The ransomware attacks from April to May 2016.

Ransomware attack from August to November

The outbreak in the 2nd half of 2016 is said to be linked to a Trojan on a major financial website. In 2016, at least 4.97 million PCs were attacked and the number is expected to grow 10 times to 50 million in 2017.

6. Regulation
Earlier today, the Supreme People’s Court of China publicized an official interpretation on the telecom fraud and other criminal cases. Criminals who have committed frauds with value of more than 3,000 RMB of public and private property can be sentenced to less than 3 years imprisonment, 3 to 10 years imprisonment for 30,000 RMB and lifetime imprisonment for amount above 500,000 RMB.

Frauds committed via phishing site, trojan and network penetration is listed among the 10 scenarios that will receive severe punishment.

Bitcoin has two sides, just like any other coins in the history of mankind.

Learn cryptocurrency and digital assets since 2013 and co-founder of 8btc in 2014. Co-author of 2014-2015 Digital Currency Development Report(2015) and first author of Investment Guidelines To Blockchain Digital Currency (Published in June 2017 ISBN:9787300239286).

COMMENTS(47)

3 years agoBitcoinAllBot

Here is the link to the original comment thread. Or you can comment here to start a discussion. Author: 8btccom

Warning, reading this message means your computer has been infected, send coins to me immediately before encryption starts. I am your only hope, don’t call the cops or we will double encrypt your shit.

You have 15 mins from reading this message, if you are the other 88.1% then move on nothing to see here.

This is a bad publicity for bitcoin. Because they use bitcoin as their bridge from their crimes. This is not.a joke since bitcoin is at stake at this situation. I think it will be unstoppable. And they will put the blame to bitcoin.

I had my computer hacked back in June and they demanded 1.2BTC for ransom. Although I know how to send BTC and I have some BTC (not greater than that ‘huge’ amount) back than, I don’t pay them and I had Googled the solution for the ransomware. Luckily there’s a decrypter available online and we had successfully decrypted our files for free. My mom’s friend also had her computer hacked in August, and also demanded Bitcoin ransom, but their technical knowledge is not that high (and don’t even know how to get bitcoin) so they have to format their hard disk…Quote from: deadsilent on December 21, 2016, 06:26:12 AM
This is a bad publicity for bitcoin. Because they use bitcoin as their bridge from their crimes. This is not.a joke since bitcoin is at stake at this situation. I think it will be unstoppable. And they will put the blame to bitcoin.
Agreed… After our computer was hacked for ransom paid in Bitcoin my family had lost all confidence in it (they had only little confidence in Bitcoin even before that)… I’m the only member of my family that is get involved in bitcoin (and altcoins)…

No surprise. Bitcoin has been the ultimate payment tool for “getting rid” of ransom ware as is being promised when payment is completed. Right now it’s either Western Union and MoneyGram that is being used for such purposes, but Bitcoin is far more interesting since it can be sent over instantly without leaving any trails behind. But I have always said it, never reward these criminals as it only gives them more incentive to continue doing this. Just make sure you at all times have an active and recent backup that you can fall back on. Just secure erase the drive, and problem solved.

Quote from: 400actforsale on December 21, 2016, 06:30:46 AM
Agreed… After our computer was hacked for ransom paid in Bitcoin my family had lost all confidence in it (they had only little confidence in Bitcoin even before that)… I’m the only member of my family that is get involved in bitcoin (and altcoins)…
The one who don’t understand bitcoin completely may think bitcoin as a way for hackers to get away with ransom amount or as criminal money. But all types of currency are being used by criminals and hackers. You have to make them understand what actually is bitcoin and how it has been safe currency for hackers and criminals.People have to think about securing their computer rather than blaming bitcoin for the cause, malware/ransomeware need a way to enter in computer. Most of the people are careless about their web surfing habit and they keep downloading files from unknown sources which are the main cause for malware and ransomeware. I am also one of them who got infected by ransomeware in past and sadly i can’t afford to pay ransom amount so that i have to format my laptop completely.

Well that would definitely sour the public’s perception of Bitcoin. It has already been associated with illegal transactions for a long time and this is not going to help btc’s and altcoin’s reputation.

Quote from: 400actforsale on December 21, 2016, 06:30:46 AM
I had my computer hacked back in June and they demanded 1.2BTC for ransom. Although I know how to send BTC and I have some BTC (not greater than that ‘huge’ amount) back than, I don’t pay them and I had Googled the solution for the ransomware. Luckily there’s a decrypter available online and we had successfully decrypted our files for free. My mom’s friend also had her computer hacked in August, and also demanded Bitcoin ransom, but their technical knowledge is not that high (and don’t even know how to get bitcoin) so they have to format their hard disk…Quote from: deadsilent on December 21, 2016, 06:26:12 AM
This is a bad publicity for bitcoin. Because they use bitcoin as their bridge from their crimes. This is not.a joke since bitcoin is at stake at this situation. I think it will be unstoppable. And they will put the blame to bitcoin.
Agreed… After our computer was hacked for ransom paid in Bitcoin my family had lost all confidence in it (they had only little confidence in Bitcoin even before that)… I’m the only member of my family that is get involved in bitcoin (and altcoins)…

Is very bad news to hear and offering our sympathies for you. My father never want to use phone that is more advance than SMS phone only, since he hears from friends they have their phone being hacked (even I think is not true as the friends just lose passwords or play with settings to spoil it). Wish you luck and be more careful for visiting unknown sites.

How many times do we need to repeat this? DO YOUR DAMN BACKUPS and then you will laugh at this, when it happens to you. I backup regulary on DVD’s, so I will not pay a cent, if I get Ransomware demanding bitcoins to decrypt my data. DO NOT simply over write previous backups on a external harddrive, because that may be infected too. DO NOT save private keys on your computer. Use Virtual machines / Clean bootable Operating systems like Tails to restart the OS after each session, to avoid infection. Lastly, educate people about this threat and counter measures to protect themselves. ^smile^

11.9% is a large number. Given the speed at which ransomware spreads, even if a small percentage of infected computers agree to pay the ransom, the attacker has made a tidy profit. With such a large number ready to pay, it is not surprising that ransomware has the potential to grow exponentially. It won’t translate into growth for Bitcoin though.

Quote from: slaman29 on December 21, 2016, 07:15:51 AM
Is very bad news to hear and offering our sympathies for you. My father never want to use phone that is more advance than SMS phone only, since he hears from friends they have their phone being hacked (even I think is not true as the friends just lose passwords or play with settings to spoil it). Wish you luck and be more careful for visiting unknown sites.
Thanks for your sympathies, and I (as the admin of the computer) have made stricter control on user rights since then (previously, for convenience, all users had admin rights). It was my younger brother browsing websites when he was doing his school project when the computer was hacked. Fortunately we had most of our files backed up or decrypted successfully and no important data nor bitcoins was lost.For your father’s case, I think he can use the latest smartphones despite he is afraid of being hacked, if he know not to store many important information on the phone…Quote from: panju1 on December 21, 2016, 07:22:16 AM
11.9% is a large number. Given the speed at which ransomware spreads, even if a small percentage of infected computers agree to pay the ransom, the attacker has made a tidy profit. With such a large number ready to pay, it is not surprising that ransomware has the potential to grow exponentially. It won’t translate into growth for Bitcoin though.
In fact I have monitored the BTC price since my PC hack in June (I had left for a while that time), and the price haven’t stopped increasing since that time, from $460 to $800 today… These ransoms in fact bring lots of buy orders on Bitcoin (and the hackers won’t sell them instantly as they may be tracked) and hence driving up the price…Quote from: Kakmakr on December 21, 2016, 07:21:50 AM
DO NOT save private keys on your computer.
Well I am always doing this…Quote from: Kakmakr on December 21, 2016, 07:21:50 AM
DO YOUR DAMN BACKUPSWe are always doing this to avoid hardware failure.

this ransomware is becoming one of the worst malwares of our time in my opinion, it is growing fast and the protections currently available doesn’t seem to be strong enough against its variations. and the fact that it is coupled with bitcoin for the distributors to take ransom is doubly worse because of how it is making bitcoin look in the media.

This is indeed serious and the advance laboratories should come up with a solution soon, most of the recent worms are passed through crypter to make them undetectable by hardcore antivirus so it’s scary at the moment but hope for a solution in the coming weeks.

if this kind of ransomware fluorish over the china, would bitcoin banned in China or how could Chinese government do to prevent those kind of ransomewares? that is a question.btw qihu 360 softwares’ award were disqualified because of possible cheats on performance on preventing viruses.

This is a worrisome big number, 11.9%This is something I don’t understand:Quote
The victim said he received an email in his PKU emailbox with a PDF attachment. He doubled click the file out of curiosity, then all of his files were locked.
does this mean that there still are antivirus programs that don’t detect ransomware?And about bad publicity:Somebody smart enough will see thru this and be able to decide that if cyber criminals can rely on Bitcoin, then Bitcoin is a really good coin/currency/asset, actually.

Quote from: lottery248 on December 21, 2016, 08:26:12 AM
if this kind of ransomware fluorish over the china, would bitcoin banned in China or how could Chinese government do to prevent those kind of ransomewares? that is a question.btw qihu 360 softwares’ award were disqualified because of possible cheats on performance on preventing viruses.

maybe it is because China has the first largest population in the world that it also has the most victims to this particular ransomware. but I doubt that the government is going to do anything about bitcoin just because a computer malware is using it to take ransom from pool people who was the victim of this malware, that wouldn’t make any sense.there have been some improvements on breaking the encryption from some of the variations of this malware though. but it has not yet been completely neutralized.

Quote from: lottery248 on December 21, 2016, 08:26:12 AM
if this kind of ransomware fluorish over the china, would bitcoin banned in China or how could Chinese government do to prevent those kind of ransomewares? that is a question.btw qihu 360 softwares’ award were disqualified because of possible cheats on performance on preventing viruses.

maybe it is because China has the first largest population in the world that it also has the most victims to this particular ransomware. but I doubt that the government is going to do anything about bitcoin just because a computer malware is using it to take ransom from pool people who was the victim of this malware, that wouldn’t make any sense.there have been some improvements on breaking the encryption from some of the variations of this malware though. but it has not yet been completely neutralized.

It is also a cultural issue. In third world countries, people have no qualms about using pirated software if it means saving a few dollars. When lots of people download and install software from unsafe sources on the net, it becomes easy for malware to spread.

Without doubt the spread of ransomware is a bad issue and is something which anyone of us have take under consideration. Moreover I see that China goverment has enact strict penalties which means that it takes very seriously the whole issue. But I would like to mention another one thing which is more evil imo. Recently ransomware criminals asked of their victims to pay or sending a link so as to infect other computers i.e to act like as trojan horse in order decrypt their files. It’s interesting to drop an eye if you are unaware of it. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1714639.msg17176971#msg17176971

Bitcoin is being made a scapegoat for the ransom ware, it is not even related to it. This fools are bringing bad name to Bitcoin, already people are skeptical of Bitcoin and this news won’t really help people come into Bitcoin. There’s no way to stop this people or file a complaint in your local country it department and then they track it, or we have to live under constant fear of being held for Ranson? It could also be the local work right? I hope people do not associate this with Bitcoin as both are not even related.

Quote from: aso118 on December 21, 2016, 08:40:29 AM
It is also a cultural issue. In third world countries, people have no qualms about using pirated software if it means saving a few dollars. When lots of people download and install software from unsafe sources on the net, it becomes easy for malware to spread.
Yes its the main reason for malware to spread quickly in third world and developing countries. Actually people from these countries can’t afford to buy 100$+ priced software for one small task but they need it badly, so they will keep searching for crack version and key generator and most of the time this types of files contains malware.

I agree, ransomware is pretty bad, especially that new one that gives you the option to infect your friends instead of paying It’s unfortunate that bitcoin has gotten itself in this mess because it only increases the stereotype that bitcoin has with drugs, hackers, terrorism,…I really hope that people learn one thing from this though: backups,backups,backups…

In the article they are saying that criminals who have committed frauds with value of more than 500,000 RMB (which is $71,500) will get lifetime imprisonment. I’m wondering if hackers robbed 100 victims for $800 will they get lifetime imprisonment? If the answers is yes, and most likely it is, the hackers should think twice whether it worth the risk. What a life! First you are robbing innocent people and then you spend the rest of your days in prison.

Quote from: davis196 on December 21, 2016, 11:54:39 AM
I know that bitcoin payments are irreversible, but there should be a way to refund those nasty ransom payments.This creates a bad reputation for bitcoin.
There’re some good exchanges that will freeze the hacker’s accounts when they found that the fund deposited was the hacked funds. However for exchanges to do this the amount must be big enough to catch eyes of them (so normal ransomware hacks isn’t this case) and the exchange is good enough to forfeit the big fee collected by trading those coins (that’s why they’re only few of these cases).For a refund of a bitcoin tx, I would definitely say no because this is one of the advantage of bitcoin and doing this will make the price crash!Quote from: just_Alice on December 21, 2016, 11:50:33 AM
In the article they are saying that criminals who have committed frauds with value of more than 500,000 RMB (which is $71,500) will get lifetime imprisonment. I’m wondering if hackers robbed 100 victims for $800 will they get lifetime imprisonment? If the answers is yes, and most likely it is, the hackers should think twice whether it worth the risk. What a life! First you are robbing innocent people and then you spend the rest of your days in prison.
In China people could pay money to officials to make them free of being imprisoned… Also they may pay and find someone to be in jail in place of themselves…So the high percentage of Chinese paying for ransomware maybe a reason that why BTC is so popular in China (so miners there mine BTC for them and get RMB), as they have created a lot of buy orders…

Quote from: davis196 on December 21, 2016, 11:54:39 AM
I know that bitcoin payments are irreversible, but there should be a way to refund those nasty ransom payments.This creates a bad reputation for bitcoin.
There’re some good exchanges that will freeze the hacker’s accounts when they found that the fund deposited was the hacked funds. However for exchanges to do this the amount must be big enough to catch eyes of them (so normal ransomware hacks isn’t this case) and the exchange is good enough to forfeit the big fee collected by trading those coins (that’s why they’re only few of these cases).For a refund of a bitcoin tx, I would definitely say no because this is one of the advantage of bitcoin and doing this will make the price crash!Quote from: just_Alice on December 21, 2016, 11:50:33 AM
In the article they are saying that criminals who have committed frauds with value of more than 500,000 RMB (which is $71,500) will get lifetime imprisonment. I’m wondering if hackers robbed 100 victims for $800 will they get lifetime imprisonment? If the answers is yes, and most likely it is, the hackers should think twice whether it worth the risk. What a life! First you are robbing innocent people and then you spend the rest of your days in prison.
In China people could pay money to officials to make them free of being imprisoned… Also they may pay and find someone to be in jail in place of themselves…So the high percentage of Chinese paying for ransomware maybe a reason that why BTC is so popular in China (so miners there mine BTC for them and get RMB), as they have created a lot of buy orders…

I hope you can provide links that is related to your comment. It’s hard to judge China as a country who uses bitcoin in illicit activities if there are no documents to backup your claims. I just want to be critical in believing to a certain information. But if given that you are right I hope that bitcoin should not be used in illicit activities. Let’s just hope that the issue on ramsware could not have a big and giant effect on bitcoins reputation as well as its price.

This could blown up into a multi million dollar business,they can do this business because authorities cnnot trace them if they pay with Bitcoin,with so many bitcoin mixers in the market,it’s so hard where are these bitcoin coming from and who owns it,they should find a way to stop it…

Quote from: Xester on December 21, 2016, 01:31:05 PM
I hope you can provide links that is related to your comment. It’s hard to judge China as a country who uses bitcoin in illicit activities if there are no documents to backup your claims. I just want to be critical in believing to a certain information. But if given that you are right I hope that bitcoin should not be used in illicit activities. Let’s just hope that the issue on ramsware could not have a big and giant effect on bitcoins reputation as well as its price.
Well the claims on Chinese paying out of prison etc are just my personal thoughts of them, and if you don’t think it is true, simply ignore them.As I have mentioned in my previous post on this thread, the reputation of bitcoin has falled, at least for my family. However as I mentioned on another post of this thread, it would have a positive effect on price due to the buy orders created. This is why these ransomware hacks have both pros and cons on bitcoin.

wow that is such a big percentage, and we are talking about Chinese population not a small country. that 11.9% in China is a lot of people who have already been a victim to this virus.i just hope bitcoin doesn’t start to look like a criminal coin again in the media.

Quote from: BitcoinHodler on December 21, 2016, 02:25:21 PM
wow that is such a big percentage, and we are talking about Chinese population not a small country. that 11.9% in China is a lot of people who have already been a victim to this virus.i just hope bitcoin doesn’t start to look like a criminal coin again in the media.

Yes, it’s big but I thought it’s even bigger. This virus is very agressive and Bitcoin ransoware is so lucrative source of money for hackers. Most people usualy pay because they don’t have other solution, they don’t have back up or anything. And yes, this could again lead to the thing that Bitcoin is beeing considered as criminal which is very bad. But people have to understand that criminals are just misusing it like fiat money too.

11.9% is a large number. Given the speed at which ransomware spreads, even if a small percentage of infected computers agree to pay the ransom, the attacker has made a tidy profit. With such a large number ready to pay, it is not surprising that ransomware has the potential to grow exponentially. It won’t translate into growth for Bitcoin though.

I agree, 11.9% is a shockingly high number and guarantees an expansion of these criminal activities since they are insanely profitable (given the significant amount paid in each individual case). It’s clearly bad for the perception of Bitcoin, because most people are (incomprehensibly) unable to differentiate between the criminal, who caused the damage and the currency he uses. If an act of crime is the first occasion for people to learn about Bitcoin, they will certainly stay away from it.On the other hand the remedy against ransomware is not really complicated: regular backups.ya.ya.yo!

Quote from: 400actforsale on December 21, 2016, 06:30:46 AM
Agreed… After our computer was hacked for ransom paid in Bitcoin my family had lost all confidence in it (they had only little confidence in Bitcoin even before that)… I’m the only member of my family that is get involved in bitcoin (and altcoins)…
The one who don’t understand bitcoin completely may think bitcoin as a way for hackers to get away with ransom amount or as criminal money. But all types of currency are being used by criminals and hackers. You have to make them understand what actually is bitcoin and how it has been safe currency for hackers and criminals.People have to think about securing their computer rather than blaming bitcoin for the cause, malware/ransomeware need a way to enter in computer. Most of the people are careless about their web surfing habit and they keep downloading files from unknown sources which are the main cause for malware and ransomeware. I am also one of them who got infected by ransomeware in past and sadly i can’t afford to pay ransom amount so that i have to format my laptop completely.

What you are saying is true, their are users who in greed download the exe from the site who are offering free gifts or any other bounty and when their computer gets hacked or get virus infected start to blame others or blame bitcoin users and give bad remark to bitcoin. But the true followers of bitcoin knows the problem and it wont affect much in Bitcoin community as all types of currency are used in ransomware but blaming bitcoin is easy for them.

Quote from: royalfestus on December 21, 2016, 04:13:11 PM
How does the malware infection ? How can it be prevented ?

People spread this via infected email attachments or through malicious websites or even through pirated software. You can prevent this, by not opening strange attachments or clicking on weird links and not downloading and/or using pirated software. I still remember not long ago, someone distributed malicious code within a pirated game, which he used to create a bot farm to mine Alt coins. Also backing up your files will prevent you from having to pay for possible data loss.

While we know that it could bring bad publicity for bitcoin, it also means that many people NEVER backup their important files knowing the risks the data could be lost, stolen or become hostage of ransomware.Also, it means that people can’t protect their PC well, they might have outdated antivirus or don’t have one.

Quote from: NeuroticFish on December 21, 2016, 08:34:14 AM
This is a worrisome big number, 11.9%This is something I don’t understand:Quote
The victim said he received an email in his PKU emailbox with a PDF attachment. He doubled click the file out of curiosity, then all of his files were locked.
does this mean that there still are antivirus programs that don’t detect ransomware?And about bad publicity:Somebody smart enough will see thru this and be able to decide that if cyber criminals can rely on Bitcoin, then Bitcoin is a really good coin/currency/asset, actually.

The problem is anyone can use fiat. Your 5 year old knows if they take out the garbage they’ll get a dollar, which they can buy some gum with. The problem is we don’t want just ‘smart people’ to use bitcoins, as that’s not a large portion of the population. Regular ‘non-smart people’ that just hear on the news that bitcoins are bad because of this won’t think twice about it. Bitcoins are now bad in their eyes. They don’t understand anything about bitcoins so if this is the only thing they know they won’t get past it unless something good happens from bitcoins.In the end this is just slowing down adoption.

Quote from: hl5460 on December 21, 2016, 05:50:54 AM
Qihu 360, the leading IT company in China, releases an annual report on the development of ransomware in China and predicts 10 times growth of potential victims or 50 million in 2017.http://news.8btc.com/chinese-bitcoin-ransomware-report-11-9-victim-pay-to-recover-their-files
To be honest I’m surprised that there are so many people affected by ransomware and how few of them actually go and pay for it. I would assume that a significant portion of those who don’t pay have many or recent backups of their data, so something like that could potentially be explained, but it also goes to show there is a LOT of money that can be made in ransomware, even if only a small percentage pay.

Current computer security system is really not good(I know that releasing some virus are also a part of advertisements for those companies that offers anti-virus or malware system). I am not so surprised about this thing to happen tho that is why i do not hold too much huge information or amounts on any online system

Quote from: hl5460 on December 21, 2016, 05:50:54 AM
Qihu 360, the leading IT company in China, releases an annual report on the development of ransomware in China and predicts 10 times growth of potential victims or 50 million in 2017.http://news.8btc.com/chinese-bitcoin-ransomware-report-11-9-victim-pay-to-recover-their-files
Only 12%? I’m surprised to be honest. I would have expected for a lot more people to be paying to recover their files, however it also depends on the demographics of the people that get infected with the ransomware now that I think about it. If a lot of businesses end up with something like ransomware, chances are their IT departments will just remedy it, assuming they have the tools.

Quote from: deadsilent on December 21, 2016, 06:26:12 AM
. And they will put the blame to bitcoin.

Nothing to do with bitcoin, and I don’t see why they will blame bitcoin. If they get hacked it’s their incompetence of not protecting good enough their PC. Bitcoin is just pseudo-anonymous money that with the right tools can be converted to fully anonymous that’s why those ransomware hackers asks to be paid in such currency.In the end it is the user duty to protect their PC.

Quote from: deadsilent on December 21, 2016, 06:26:12 AM
. And they will put the blame to bitcoin.

Nothing to do with bitcoin, and I don’t see why they will blame bitcoin. If they get hacked it’s their incompetence of not protecting good enough their PC. Bitcoin is just pseudo-anonymous money that with the right tools can be converted to fully anonymous that’s why those ransomware hackers asks to be paid in such currency.In the end it is the user duty to protect their PC.
Sure, they shouldn’t blame bitcoin, but for a lot of people it might be the first time they hear about bitcoin and that’s not a good first impression.

Quote from: deadsilent on December 21, 2016, 06:26:12 AM
. And they will put the blame to bitcoin.

Nothing to do with bitcoin, and I don’t see why they will blame bitcoin. If they get hacked it’s their incompetence of not protecting good enough their PC. Bitcoin is just pseudo-anonymous money that with the right tools can be converted to fully anonymous that’s why those ransomware hackers asks to be paid in such currency.In the end it is the user duty to protect their PC.
Sure, they shouldn’t blame bitcoin, but for a lot of people it might be the first time they hear about bitcoin and that’s not a good first impression.

Exactly true, bitcoin had bad first impression since it have been used for illegal things, although fiat also have been used more for terrorist and war purpose.And that’s exactly true their not securing their device because they not have good ability to protect it.But why used suspicious things to rise marketcap, why not spread good vibe about bitcoin to worldwide, I’m not hypocritical, I want bitcoin price rise, but with beauty ways.

Quote from: 1Referee on December 21, 2016, 06:39:28 AM
No surprise. Bitcoin has been the ultimate payment tool for “getting rid” of ransom ware as is being promised when payment is completed. Right now it’s either Western Union and MoneyGram that is being used for such purposes, but Bitcoin is far more interesting since it can be sent over instantly without leaving any trails behind. But I have always said it, never reward these criminals as it only gives them more incentive to continue doing this. Just make sure you at all times have an active and recent backup that you can fall back on. Just secure erase the drive, and problem solved.

First I thought no wonder Qihu 360 are trying to scare people so they start using their antivirus products. But on the other hand maybe they are right in a way. There are more and more ransomware has been developed lately and who knows, maybe the number of potential victims will really reach 50 million in 2017.